At a glance

  • Project: Life Course Transitions and Trajectories of Persons with Disabilities in West African Societies (LICOT-WASO)
  • Term: 09 | 2020 – 02 | 2024
  • Implemented by: Centre for Planning and Evaluation of Social Services (ZPE) │University of Siegen (Germany) & Department of Social Work │ University of Ghana
  • Funded by: German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)
  • Objectives: Establishing a joint research focus on disability and life course at the University of Ghana and the University of Siegen by engaging 8 PhD students from university of Ghana to conduct research on disability and life course in West African Societies.

About

The LICOT-WASO project is concerned with the scientific research of life courses of people with disabilities. Guiding questions of life course theory will be used as framework to analyse the situation of people with disabilities in West African societies. Above all, the findings will be discussed in the framework of inclusive development and implications for social protection programs and social systems such as health, education and other related fields. In doing so, explicit reference will be made to the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) and to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015.

Objectives

The project aims at gaining scientific knowledge about the developmental tasks and transitions of people with disabilities between the life phases of childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood and old age. The project will establish a social science research group at the University of Ghana / Legon, which closely cooperates with a research group of the Centre for Planning and Evaluation of Social Services (ZPE) at the University of Siegen. The West African research group will include eight junior researchers (PhD students) who will conduct projects on various aspects of life course transitions and trajectories of people with disabilities in different sectors and fields of West African societies.